Wheelchairs are well known in the art, and have changed but little in the many years of their use. The wheelchair is the primary vehicle for moving non-ambulatory patients in a hospital, nursing home or the like, and for use anywhere by those who have no legs, or who do not have the use of their legs. More recently, it has become common practice for everyone being discharged from a hospital to be transported from the hospital in a wheelchair.
The wheelchair has some disadvantages. One of the primary drawbacks is that the conventional wheelchair has no storage space. Even a person carrying a pocketbook or brief case has no place in a wheelchair to put the item to allow manipulation of the chair. The prior art solution to the problem is to provide a small vehicle, usually motorized, having a basket for receiving small articles. While such vehicles are reasonably popular, and constitute some improvement over the conventional wheelchair, the storage space is s limited that the vehicle is not practical for many purposes. Furthermore, such vehicles are generally constructed for the person who has good use of the body and arms, and are not constructed to care for the very sick or disabled.
When patients in hospitals or the like must be transported with their baggage, the presently conventional method is to place the patient in a wheelchair, and use two or more people to push the wheelchair and to carry the baggage. Alternatively one must make two or more trips to transfer all the baggage. It will of course be understood that skilled people are used to transport patients in order to care for the patient during transport. Use of two or more of these skilled people therefore substantially increases the labor cost in transporting patients, whether transportation from one room to another or transporting for discharge.